Brian Ashcraft

When you look at Japanese rice, seaweed, and ikura, you probably think sushi. Art school grad Mayuka Nakamura saw something different. She saw warships.

Using rice with vinegar, nori (seaweed), ikura, and uni (sea urchin), Nakamura re-created the eleven different warships—such as the Imperial Japanese Navy ship Kongo, Imperial aircraft carrier Hosho, and Imperial destroyer Yurikaze—for her graduate work at the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music.

There is a popular type of sushi called "gunkan maki" (軍艦巻) or literally "battleship roll sushi", which is how ikura and uni are typically served. Nakamura took that imagery and went one step further.

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What makes the work so interesting is that, as Nakamura pointed out, who would say traditional gunkan maki resembles battleships and destroyers? So she decided to make sushi that actually did.

According to Nakamura, "I'd like people who aren't even into warships to look at this and go, 'Woah.'"

Her art came at a price—a yummy one. "Thanks to this delicious work, I gained lots of weight." All in the name of art—delectable art.